


Love in the Time of Purgatory

by katkrap



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Destiel - Freeform, M/M, Purgatory, porndayoct2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-10-16
Packaged: 2017-11-16 10:29:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katkrap/pseuds/katkrap
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's not leaving Cas behind, even if it means dragging him out of Purgatory along with him.  But when they have to take shelter in a cave during a storm, Dean and Cas discuss what they've given and lost over the years.  More importantly, they find what's been in front of them the whole time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love in the Time of Purgatory

If Dean knew one thing about Purgatory, it was this: Purgatory was cold.

Cold wasn’t the right word, but it was the closest to what it felt like; a constant, bone-deep ache that made your whole body numb.  The dark made it worse, and the day didn’t help.  Probably because it wasn’t day.  Not really.  Day meant _light,_ and light meant _warmth_.  But in Purgatory, there was a distinct deficiency of both.  There was only the absence of dark in the hours which were not night.  The cold, however, was a constant.

Days were difficult to travel during.  The lack of darkness made them easy targets, and higher they climbed, the sparser the trees became.  They were making good time, or at least that’s what Benny kept saying.  Dean still didn’t know the vampire well, but he knew him well enough.  If nothing else, he wanted out as much—if not more—than Dean did.  So there was that.  Of their little band of three, Benny seemed to be the one most suited to the terrain.  He knew all the best hiding areas.  And the best _ambush_ areas.  They’d been able to hold their own against the monsters thus far.  Dean was learning quickly, developing patterns and helping plan their approach to the “escape hatch,” as Benny called it.  Initially, he’d assisted where he could.  But nowadays, most of his energy was dedicated to Cas.

It had been two days since he and Benny found Cas, and he was in no better shape than the two of them.  His coat was torn and dirty, he’d grown a full beard, and Dean wasn’t sure if he was less crazy or just a hell of a lot better about keeping it hidden.  And things didn’t get better from there.  They argued, discussed why it was Cas had bailed on him the moment they entered purgatory.  Cas said it was to protect Dean.

Dean didn’t say it, but he was getting more than a little fed up with the “guardian angel”-shtick.

What he did say was that he wasn’t going anywhere without Cas.  Something equal parts frustration and relief seemed to wash over Castiel’s features and he nodded.  “I understand.”

And that was that.  Benny didn’t fight him on it, and neither did Cas.  They were in for the long haul and they still had a hell of a walk to go.  And everything in Purgatory was after them.

Cas was weaker than Dean ever remembered him being.  It was strange watching him climb the rocks on his own, watching him second guess his own footing.  Sometimes the ground beneath them would shift, and Cas’s eyes would go wide with panic.  Dean would have to go back, untangle Cas’s limbs from whatever stone he was clinging too, all the while telling him it would be alright.

Benny didn’t say anything, but then, he didn’t have to.  Dean knew perfectly well Cas was slowing them down.  They’d been able to cover almost four times as much ground before they’d been able to find Cas.  Every time Benny looked at them, Dean could almost hear the admonition bubbling on the back of the vampire’s tongue.  He’d ease Cas’s arm around his shoulders, pull him to his feet, and hold Benny’s gaze.  Eventually, the vampire would just shake his head and start walking again.

The light was fading.  Or rather, the darkness was coming.  Benny had been the one to pick out a cave in the rocky face of the cliff wall.  Above them dark clouds rolled in like thunderheads and a constant rumble played on the horizon.  If Dean didn’t know any better, he’d have said it looked like…

“Rain,” Benny said, standing behind him at the entrance to the cavern.

Dean glanced back at him.  “Come again?”

“Rain’s coming in.”  He smirked at Dean.  “Well… I say _rain_.”

“What is it?” Dean asked.

“Blackness,” Benny murmured.  “Thick as tar, comes down in droves… can burn through your skin if you’re out in it too long and stings like a mother fucker.  Night like this, a body’s better off staying inside.”  Another clap of not-thunder split the sky open and Benny shook his head.  “We’re gonna require a bit of kindling, night like this.”

Dean nodded, shouldering his ebony axe.  “Right.  I’ll be back in—”

“Whoa, whoa, hang on,” Benny chuckled, putting out an arm.  “You’re not leaving me alone here with crazy.”

Dean let out a sharp breath, turning back to indicate the angel behind them.  “Dude, Cas isn’t…”  He stared at the angel sitting cross-legged on the floor, and his mouth snapped shut.  Cas had pushed himself into the furthest corner of the cave, legs to his chest as he rocked back and forth.  His eyes were wide and animal-like, starting at every tiny sound in the cave.

Benny clicked his tongue.  “If I may, Dean, looks like his eggs’ve gone and been scrambled.”

Dean ran a hand over his face.  “N… no, he’s… not so bad, Benny, I promise, he’s just a little—”

“Sure, nice try, though,” Benny said, taking the axe from Dean.  “You and yours stay here.  I’m gonna go find us some kindling.”

Dean looked at the sky again.  “You sure you’ll make it back in time?”

Benny flashed him a smile.  “Tell you what, this rain doesn’t bother me quite a bit as much as it would a human.  Iffen I’m not back, don’t you go comin’ to look for me, you understand?”  Benny sighed and turned up the collar of his coat.  “There’s gon’ be a might load of worser things in this woods tonight, I reckon.”  He nodded in the direction of Castiel.  “You keep an eye on your friend, you hear?”

Dean sighed.  “Yeah, sure.”  And with that, he watched Benny disappear into the trees.  He watched until he couldn’t make out the shape of the vampire in the brush. Even then, he kept watching until the sky darkened and another bout of thunder rolled down the hills. 

***

It had been at least an hour, and the sky was black.  It had started raining, huge black drops from the sky.  He’d put a hand outside the cave and into the rain and found Benny was true to his word.  The drops that found him stung.  Bruises welled to the surface of his hand within minutes of the liquid touching him.  The storm showed no sign of stopping, and thus far, there’d been no sign of their vampire friend.

They were well and utterly trapped.

Dean had to stop pacing the cave, feeling his way blindly into the camp they’d set up further in the cave.  Darkness was complete now.  They couldn’t have been more than a stone’s throw from the mouth of the cave, and yet all around Dean was a heavy sheet of blackness.  Dean felt awkwardly in front of him.  Finally he gave up and went to his last resort.  “Cas?”

“Yes.”

Dean gave a little sigh and a chuckle.  “Good, I must be close.”  He fumbled at the empty air with one hand, his foot sliding along the cave floor.  He couldn’t feel the rucksacks they’d filled with supplies, and he had no indication how much farther it would be.  A hand grabbed his and he nearly jumped out of his skin trying to get away.

The hand held tight, twisted him close so he couldn’t get away.  “It’s me, Dean,” Cas said in the same, calm voice as always.

“ _Jeez_ ,” Dean chuckled.  “You just scared the shit out of me.”  He brought up his other hand to Cas’s forearm, grabbing hold of the angel as he began guiding him through the dark.  “Can you actually see in this place?”

“Sight is a relative term,” Cas said, pulling Dean along.  “My senses are more attuned than yours.  However, while it is not absolute to my vision, the darkness here is deeper than any I have seen before.”

“Blind leading the blind, eh?”

“Perhaps.”  Dean thought he could hear a smirk in Cas’s voice.  “You can sit now.”

Dean held fast to Cas’s hand as he lowered himself onto the ground.  He let go once he was sitting, muttered, “Thanks.”  He felt around until his hands rested on one of the sacks and began feeling through the supplies. He thought better of it and, instead, asked, “do I have the food bag?”

“Here,” Cas said.  There was the sound of shuffling on the floor and then a hand on Dean’s shoulder.  Dean reached up and Cas took his hand, put some sort of a fruit in it.  Dean was familiar with the item.  It was like an apple, but tart and bitter.  Unlike the angel and the vampire who didn’t seem to need food to sustain them, Dean apparently still needed to eat to survive.  And in Purgatory, choices were silm.

Dean choked down a mouthful of the bitter apple and shook his head.  “God, I’d totally kill for a pie right about now.”  Only silence came back to him.  Dean shifted.  “Cas?”

Nothing.

“Cas, you still here?”

A little further away, a voice came.  “Yes.”

“You alright?”

For a long while, only silence came back to him.  Dean wondered if he’d gone off again.  It was a bit weird here.  Cas had trouble walking a path and climbing rocks, but seemed to have little to no issue with vanishing to scout ahead, especially when faced with the prospect of being alone with Dean.  Dean sighed and wondered if he was talking to himself.  “Cas?” he asked, irritation bubbling to the surface.

“I’m here.”

“Then say so when I ask,” Dean snapped, then instantly felt guilty.  He rubbed his face.  “Sorry,” he muttered.  “Sorry, I just…”  He sighed and spent a moment listening to the rain-which-was-not-rain pouring down outside, over their heads.  He opened his mouth to speak and was cut short by another’s voice.

“You shouldn’t have come back for me,” Cas muttered.

Dean sighed and rubbed his temples.  They’d had this conversation at least three time since they’d found the angel washing his face in the river.  He shook his head.  “We’re not having this conversation again.”

“It’s _dangerous_ , Dean,” Castiel repeated.

And that was it.  The magical set of words that snapped Dean’s patience clean in two.  He shoved himself to his feet, stumbling in the direction the voice had come from.  “You know what, Cas?  This martyr bullshit is for the birds.”

The angel’s voice was nearer now.  “I’m trying to protect you.”

“Yeah, you’ve been doing that for a while now,” Dean snapped.  “And you know what, I’m sick of it.”

A pause, then a quiet, “I don’t understand.”

“God dammit, Cas,” Dean growled.  “Seriously?  You’re missing the pattern here?”  He counted off on fingers he couldn’t see held up in front of him.  “You try to protect us from Raphael’s little Michael Corleone stunt and aggressive takeover.  You have an allergic reaction to trying from trying to swallow Purgatory.  You get back and end up swallowing all of Sam’s crazy.  We get to Purgatory and you fuckin’ bail on me.  Every single fucking time, you tell me you’re trying to protect me—”

“I am trying to protect you—”

“And every time you do, I end up holding the short end of the stick.”  He swallowed hard and shook his head.  “I’m the one who has to go on because Sammy was dead and you abandoned ship, alright?  Death keeps happening to everyone else, and every time I’m stranded.  On my own.”

“You had Lisa.”

Dean let out a bitter laugh.  “Lisa.  Sure, I had Lisa.  But Lisa sure as hell didn’t have me.  I don’t think she knew what to do with me half the fucking time.”  He shook his head.  “I mean, how do you deal with Apocalyptic PTSD?  No one’s trained for that shit, certainly not a suburban single-mother who picks up the stray hunter because no one else would have him.”  Dean shook his head.  “Yeah, I had Lisa.  But Lisa didn’t have me.  Not really.”

Cas hesitated before murmuring, “you seemed happy.  And I didn’t want to put you in any danger.”

“Yeah, well that didn’t work out so well for us, did it?”  He shrugged.  “Look, Cas… if I have to pick between being protected and alone and being in danger and not being alone, well…”  He rubbed his nose and shrugged.  “A-and, let’s get something straight, okay, I’m not _asking_ for your permission and I’m not _asking_ you to like my choices, alright?  I’m asking you to let me make my own choice for once.  And that choice is that you’re stuck with me, okay?”  He snorted and added, “I’m fucking done being the damsel in distress your melodramatic ass feels the need to save me, okay?”  Dean waited for a response.  An argument or just a soft noise that indicated that the angel had, in fact, heard everything he had to say.  But there was nothing.  Just the rainfall outside their cave and the feeling that the space around him was getting smaller. “Cas?” Dean murmured.

Still nothing.

His throat worked and he tried again.  “Cas—?”

And then it happened.

It took more time than he wanted to admit to himself for him to figure out what had just happened, and even then, he couldn’t move.  He couldn’t think about moving.  He couldn’t _think_.  This was weird.  This was so beyond weird.  In fact, it was downright fucking _gay_.  Even as it was happening, he was forcing himself to spell it out in his head, cross-reference and double-check that this was actually happening.  And it was.

Cas was kissing him.  _Kissing_ him.  Hard and messy with too much tongue, hands on either side of his face with that goddamn peach fuzz scrapping up his chin and while every hetero impulse in his body was screaming for him to launch himself to the other side of the cave like a cat who’d been tossed into a tub full of water, Dean was reaching a horrifying conclusion.

It wasn’t half bad.

In fact, it was nice.

He opened his mouth wider, responding to the feel of the angel’s lips on his when all at once they were gone.  In the absolute blackness he could hear Cas breathing hard, could hear the quiver in his voice.  “I’m sorry,” he mumbled.  “I shouldn’t have—”

If it had been a movie, what would have happened next was that Dean’s hands would have closed on the front of Cas’s jacket, pulled him in close and kissed him back; hard, messy, and too much tongue while they started tearing off each other’s clothes.

What happened instead was that Dean launched himself in the direction of Cas’s voice, hands out in front of him reaching for someone who was not there.  He ended up tripping over a bag, stumbling forward and falling flat on his stupid face while his hands groped at the empty air.

If there was light in the cave, Dean was certain he would have looked like an even bigger fool than he felt.  “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

It was a moment before Castiel finally spoke, and when he did, his voice was directly above Dean.  “Are you alright?”

Dean felt at the empty air, patting what might have been the front of Cas’s jacket.  “This you, Cas?” he asked.

“Yes.”  Castiel didn’t move as Dean felt blindly for the collar of the jacket.  “Would you like me to help you up, or—”

It was Dean’s turn to cut him off.  Once he was positive he had Castiel’s collar, he pulled down hard, dragging the angel down to him.  Their faces collided with more force than Dean intended, sending a bright pain into his mouth.  He didn’t care.  His hands were fists on that stupid rag of a jacket Cas still wore, peach fuzz rubbing the skin around his mouth raw as they both kissed hard.

Cas pulled back just long enough to voice a question in a single word.  “Dean…?”

“Shut up,” Dean half groaned against Cas’s mouth, pulling him down hard.  Dean was sitting on the floor of the cave, Cas kneeling in front of him, his hands moved back to hold Dean’s face as he kissed him harder.  Dean started pulling off Cas’s jacket as Cas moved closer and closer.  Dean’s hands were grabby, desperate to know exactly where Cas was at any given time.  He couldn’t see a damn thing and his hands weren’t moving fast enough.  He could feel Cas shrugging off the coat, helping him out of his own jacket.  The floor of the cave was cold, making him that much more aware of how warm Cas was.  Warm hands, warm neck, warm lips, mouth, tongue.

By the time Dean’s back hit the cave floor, his jeans were all that remained of his clothing.  Cas he wasn’t so sure about until he let his hands start moving.  The coat was gone.  The tie and the shirt, gone.  Dean ran both hands up across the angel’s chest, unable to see a damn thing, but feeling every inch of skin, every place where scar-tissue puckered, the soft trails of downy hair.

Yeah.  Super-gay.

And right as the first of several “second-thoughts” popped into his head, every thought came to a screaming halt as one hot spike of thought ran straight up his back from his crotch to his head.  He groaned into Cas’s mouth, breathing hard and fast as his hips bucked up, rubbing himself hard on the thigh Cas had pressed between his legs.  In the cave, the sound was amplified, louder, folding back on itself and coming back to him ten-fold.  He sounded like a high school getting off for the first time, dry humping making out in the backseat of a car.  Cas, whether he was shameless or just curious, rubbed his thigh between Dean’s legs again.

Dean sputtered a handful of confused noises and knew dry humping wasn’t going to be enough.  “Hold on,” he gasped, struggling out of his suddenly too-tight jeans.  Again, he was rather certain in the light he would have looked like a horrific fool.  He kicked off his boots, pulled off his jeans.  He was already half-hard in his boxers, and it didn’t help that Cas was pressing a hand between his legs, tracing the shape of him through the fabric.

Dean could swear he went cross-eyed.

He pushed down his boxers, kicking them off as he struggled to find Cas’s pants in the dark.  Another round of vaudevillian-style shenanigans ensued as Dean struggled to help Cas remove his pants.  Mostly, he just got in the angel’s way and fumbled in the dark while grumbling and generally being impatient.  He was still fumbling when he felt that same, bright heat from earlier press against him.  Cas’s whole body radiated with heat despite the cutting cold of the Purgatory nights.  All at once, they were chest to chest in the dark, completely naked and shaking like two teens that hadn’t quite figured out how their bodies worked just yet. 

Dean couldn’t see a thing.  He could feel the heat of Cas breaking through the cold around him, could hear Cas’s breathing gone ragged and desperate.  He could feel the scruff on Cas’s face brushing along his jawline, seeking out his mouth and pushing his tongue inside.  He could feel Cas’s hands memorizing his body.  His calloused fingers tracing the muscles of his chest, running down his ribs, splaying out on his abdomen, sliding down and…

Oh _fuck_ …

Cas was touching him.  Both hands, no longer tracing, but grabbing, feeling and _fuck_.  He could feel _Cas_ , felt the angel’s shaft brush against his as they adjusted their hips in the dark.  He was hard as Dean, the angel’s hand guiding them together as his fingers continued exploring.  Dean moaned aloud, hips pressing up against the angel’s as his heels scraped the rocky floor beneath them.  He swore in a stuttered burst, cut off when Cas began kissing him again, one hand tracing Dean’s hairline, the other pressed between them.  Dean shoved a hand up between them, folded it over Cas’s and at the same time he pressed his hips up, his hand pulled Cas’s down.

This time he was rewarded with the gasp on the angel’s end.  He felt the tremble run all the way through Cas’s thighs and pulled their hands down again.  Cas’s body arched hard and Dean pressed back against him, a keen whine in his throat.  Despite the cold, he’d started sweating.  So had Cas.  Even with the sound of the rain echoing around them, the sound of sex was louder.  Their hands began working on each other, no longer a combined effort but in unison all the same.

Dean would have been lying if he said he wasn’t worked up as hell.  It wasn’t just the way Cas was jerking him off, or how Cas was fucking his hand like he’d never done anything more important.  The whole sensation was all there was, and while he wished he could see Cas’s face, he realized he didn’t need to.  He could hear Cas gnawing on his lower lip, the shuddering gasp that made him press his face into Dean’s neck, curling his toes until he started moving his hand again.  Their bodies were slick with sweat, struggling to keep hold of each other.  Dean was fairly certain he’d have a nice set of cuts on the back of his shoulders, the reverse of his thighs, but he didn’t care.  Cas was fucking his hand hard enough for Dean to feel it in his hips, their bodies pressed together in a hot mess of movement and noise.  Cas was all but pounding him into the ground.  If he had been inside Dean, if he’d _actually been_ fucking him the way he was fucking his hand, then—

_Oh God._

The thought was enough to send him toppling over the edge, orgasming without warning, without any chance of holding it off.  His whole body felt like a struck match, sending sparks down his legs, pooling heat in every hinge as he cried out at the ceiling.  He came hard enough to see gray stars bursting in the black of his vision, arching hard off the stone floor so not even his back was touching it.  He’d only just started to come back down when Cas’s face pressed hard against his neck, his hips jutting hard again Dean’s hand, spilling out between them in one hard shudder.

Dean wished he could have seen the look on the angel’s face.

He couldn’t help but smirk, and as he did, Cas kissed him.  Not so much kissed as rested his lips on Dean’s in an exhausted sort of defeat as he lay down beside the hunter.  Dean felt sticky and dirty and over-sexed and utterly spent.  He stared at what he supposed would be the ceiling—if he could see—and struggled to catch his breath.  When he finally did, he muttered, “where the hell did that come from?”

Cas shrugged, but beyond that, didn’t so much as move.

“You okay?” Dean asked.

Cas nodded.  “You?”

Dean blinked at the darkness.  “I’m… good.  Really good.”  He sighed, and added, “I’m apparently into dudes now, so that’s new.”

For the first time since they’d arrived at Purgatory, Dean could hear the smile in Cas’s voice.  The honest, easy smile he hadn’t seen for years.  “You could do somewhat worse, I suppose.”

Dean folded his arms behind his head.  “Yeah,” he muttered, sleep starting to drag him away.  “Suppose I could.”

***

By the next morning, the rain had stopped.  Dean and Cas dressed, hiked to a little stream of clear water and washed up.  They joked by the river, and when Dean flicked a handful of water at the angel, Cas flicked one back.  By the time they returned, they were half-soaked and laughing.  Benny was sitting at the mouth of the cave with a bundle of kindling at his feet.  He smirked.  “Looks like you boys survived the night.”

Cas glanced at Dean and walked back toward the cave, started gathering up their meager camp.  “Yeah,” he said.  “You seemed to have done okay.”

Benny nodded down toward the valley.  “Got caught in the storm.  Found a hollowed out tree and slept until the storm passed.”  He glanced into the cave at the angel sorting their bags.  The vampire looked back at Dean and raised an eyebrow.  “You two finally fuck it out?”

Dean felt the flush go from his collar to his hairline.  “Wh…?  I… we didn’t—”

“Bout damn time,” Benny muttered but he was smiling.  He picked up the bundle of kindling and tossed it to Dean.  “Come on.  We’ve got a ways to go today.”

Dean watched the vampire start up the hill, glanced back at the angel in the cave.  Cas gathered up their bags, shouldering one and handing the other off to Dean.  Dean smiled, took the bag and let Cas kiss him.  Hard and messy and with too much tongue.  Dean smiled and kissed the angel hard.

Yeah.  He could do a lot worse.


End file.
